“What bench?” There’s the dock and the light playing on the ripples of water and the sticky sand and the not-as-sticky sand, and the minnows that I try not to think about, and the underused grills and the lifeguard stand down a ways, but close enough to watch us.
“The bench,” Eleanor says, too irritated to have to explain it to me. “You know. Brown. Wood. Little metal plaque thing that says ‘In Memory of Laurel’ on it. It’s, like, in the grass before the sand. Under the birch tree.”
I know the birch tree. I like to rip long pieces of papery white bark from it, even though Astrid says that is bad for the environment.
I guess I can picture a bench, too, but I always sit in the grass or in the sand or on the dock where my legs can dangle into the water. I would never sit on a bench at the beach.
“Mom sits on it a lot,” Eleanor says, as though with enough words I’ll eventually remember.
“I think Laurel was Mom’s sister,” I say. I’m tired of all the knots and tangled information I have in my head. I want someone to comb it out for me.
“The dead one?” Eleanor says, like there may be more sisters and more secrets, which I guess wouldn’t be that surprising anymore.
“I think she’s stuck,” I say. “Marla and I think that, maybe. That she’s in the closet.”
I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t have my secret star in my jewelry box. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t have a little drop of magic just in case Eleanor says we can never go in the closets again.
Eleanor takes a few very deep breaths.
“You know I found Mom in your closet when we first came here,” she says at last. I can’t tell if she thinks I’m stupid or crazy or right. “She wouldn’t come out. She slept in there. It was that night we let you sleep in our room. We didn’t want you to see.”
“I would have been okay,” I say.
“It would make sense, sort of,” Eleanor says. “Dad says the best stories are the ones when everything clicks into place, right when it’s at its most confusing.”
“Laurel,” I say.
“Laurel,” she says.
One second later, Astrid’s in sight.
“I did all berries!” she says, practically skipping toward us with a huge brown bag of bagels. “I combined every kind of fruit cream cheese with every kind of fruit bagel. Blueberry cream cheese on strawberry bagel. Grape jam on raspberry bagel. It’s impressive.” Astrid’s smile makes me smile. It’s so big and wide-eyed and out of proportion.
“Sounds like a feast,” I say. I want to match Astrid’s energy.
“It is!” Astrid says. “We’re gonna make today good, okay? We’re gonna be okay. All of us.” She hands me a bagel. I don’t know what it is exactly, but her bright eyes and warm face make me take a huge bite. It’s a combination of jam and cream cheese, an explosion of tastes that drips down my chin and onto the grass.
Eleanor giggles. So does Astrid.
I miss Marla even though she’s only a few feet away, in the house. I wish she were here for this.
“We’ll take it from here,” Eleanor whispers, right when I thought we were in it together. She rubs my knee, and I can’t believe I’m still stupid Silly to her. It makes me miss Marla even more. “Astrid and I will figure out this whole Mom and Laurel and closets thing.”
“Why?” I say. I want her to know I want to be part of it all. That I am part of it all.
“You already messed up everything with Marla, honey,” Eleanor says. It’s the meanest thing she’s ever said to me, and she says it so, so nicely.
Twenty-Six
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Marla says, choosing a strawberry bagel with raspberry jam.
I’ve brought a few bagel options up to Marla’s room, since she didn’t join us for our messy feast in the kitchen. We sit on the floor while she eats. Eleanor left to see her secret boyfriend as soon as she was done eating. Astrid vanished into her room.
“We have to be in this together,” Marla says. It makes my heart jump. Marla and me. On a team together. It feels unsteady.
“Eleanor and Astrid don’t think of you as an equal. I mean, you know that, right? That’s not going to change. They’re twins. You’re never going to be one of them.” Marla steps closer to me. I try to picture Marla and me having the kind of bond I’ve always thought I had with Astrid. My face burns. So do my insides. I hear the screen door downstairs slam, and I know Astrid is going on one of her long walks to who-knows-where. And Marla’s right. I’m going to be eleven forever and they’re going to be fourteen for who knows how long, and I’ll never really be an equal.